Vermont Chocolate Potato Cake

Potatoes may seem like an unlikely ingredient for a cake, but stick with me, here. You’re going to love this moist cake, packed with spices and a light chocolate flavor.

When I spotted this recipe in the pages of Yankee’s 1981 The Yankee Magazine Cookbook, my curiosity was piqued and I knew I wanted to try it.

To start, you’ll need some freshly mashed potatoes. Two potatoes gave me plenty (a perfect excuse to eat the extra with some butter, salt, and cheddar cheese with my supper). You won’t actually taste the mashed potatoes in the finished cake, but it lends a rich moistness to the final texture.

Along with the mashed potatoes, melted unsweetened chocolate and a combination of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and vanilla and almond extracts make up the dominant flavors, while beaten egg whites give the dense crumb a lift.

Once the batter is ready, it’s poured into a 10-cup Bundt or tube pan. Bundts are my favorite kinds of cakes — they look pretty right out of the pan, and only need a glaze or dusting of powdered sugar to be table-ready.

Out of the oven, the chocolate potato cake filled my kitchen with the warm, spicy smells of the holiday season. It might have looked like summer outside my window, but if I closed my eyes I could imagine falling snow and the faint croon of Bing Crosby from the other room.

Once cooled the cake is flipped onto a plate, dusted with powdered sugar, and ready to serve. I brought my chocolate potato cake to a staff meeting here at the Yankee office, where it was met with rave reviews.

A dense, tender crumb makes this cake a winner, packed with plenty of flavor to omit the need for frosting, though if you are a frosting fan you could certainly whip up a chocolate glaze to drizzle over the top once the cake has cooled.

I am looking forward to making this cake again during the holiday season, not only because it will instantly make my kitchen smell like the inside of a gingerbread house, but because the dense, moist texture of the cake keeps beautifully for several days if wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, making it perfect for giving and sharing.

One Response to Vermont Chocolate Potato Cake

Hello, I found your post regarding the Chocolate Potato Cake and wanted to share our family story about this cake with you.

The recipe for this cake has been passed down in our family for six generations. My 3rd great grandmother Mary Lucinda Bratton Shipman used to make this cake. She taught her daughter Ina Josephine Shipman Jennings to make the cake. Ina was badly burned in December 1914 and was to ill to make the cake for Christmas, so she talked her daughter (my great grandmother) Sylvia Lee Jennings, who was 10 years old at the time, through the recipe from her sick bed. Ina died shortly after. Sylvia made the cake every year for Christmas in memory of her mother. The recipe was passed to my grandmother, Lois Erlene Hollingsworth, then to my mother and then on to me and my sisters. It is a family tradition to make the cake each year during the holidays and tell the story of Grandma Ina. “You Live as Long as You are Remembered.” -Russian Proverbs. I know that my ancestors will live long in our hearts as this year my five year old daughter will help me make the cake and hear the story for the first time.

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